Tackling is one of the most important elements of the game. While a bone crunching tackle makes a great video on You Tube the reality is missed tackles get you far more noticed in a rugby match and obviously not for the right reasons!
As a player you will instantly lose marks for a missed tackle that results in a big gain. Do this a few games in a row and you may get a rep as a poor tackler and harm your progress going forwards. As a coach you can have all the tactics, moves and fitness you want for your players but the moment missed tackles begin to happen you are staring defeat in the face. It can often prove to be helpful to sepearate your players into the different types of tackler. The four categories are –
When you have separated out your players into their general types you now must create a plan of action. As a player or rugby coach your goal should be to get yourself or all of your players into type 4 – Someone who holds no fear of tackling and is technically good at it too. The various tackler types need to be handled differently.
A way to improve everyone’s tackling is to have tackling practice in sessions. I am shocked at how little contact there is in rugby sessions. It is probably more under used than a good fitness programme and that is saying a lot. If you never do tackling in training you are sending out a message to players to be scared of tackling or that it is not that important.
Saying that though having type 1 and 2 go into full tackling practice against your strongest and best runners is probably not the way to go. It will demotivate them further. For those scared of tackling they need to do it regularly and be coached on technique. You should also test the drills you are using. Tackling one on one with 3 metres from each other is not the same as one on one against a winger in open space. A good progression for types 1 and 2 is to start non contact practice tackling (Getting into position on live drills but without the contact/wrestle to the ground).
Types 3 need coaching on their technique. While fear is not their issue selecting which tackling technique and type to use (I counted 11 types of tackle last time I checked and that was without really analysing it – see future articles). Type 4 tacklers should be helping out the rest of the team giving guidance alongside the coaches. If you are a player then spend time with type 4 tacklers or if that is you, help the worst tacklers on your team as they will be the ones who cost you victory.
Agree? Disagree? Have a thought to share? Comment below, it is always good to hear from you.
Hi Ben
I am following your work since not very long but I really appreciate it and I thank you very much for it
I share your views about tackling, I have found them quite well structureted. It is hard to find good theorethical reflexion and fine analysis on this subject. I agree we need clear ideas as tools to face this area.
I am a Spanish level III coach and I am working both with a U16 and a senior teams. First of them plays at high level and the second one plays in the second league in Spain. Different ages, different players, differen levels … same problem: very poor tackle skils.
My approach to what to do takes base ,as yours , in thinking that there are different situations and we have to be very carefull with it. It is specially important because emotions as fear or self esteem are involved and they can block the learning process.
Finally I would like to share some questions to the debate.
Do we have to work the bases player by player invidually?
Do we have to practice at full conctact in training? If the answer is yes how often? and How does it increase the risk of injury?
What percentage of the available time must we devote to tackle skills?
How can we motivate the players to carry out this training?
And
How do we introduce the decision making ? (what tecnique do we have to choose?)
Thank you again
Looking forward to hearing from you
Hi,
You raise some good questions, I would say you need to group your players roughly by ability (awful tackler/ok but scared/good etc). Then progress from their current level, if no technique and scared this could be very slow, close contact using walk throughs. Then progress to friendly runners and keep repeating until they are confident and then raise the level. I have spoken elsewhere in my newsletter….how the best players in the team need to support the weaker players….this situ is ideal for that.
I would have the weaker players tackling every session. You could have the stronger players doing stuff while the weaker guys are practising, you are only talking 10-15 minutes or so. Yes it raises injury chances compared to playing touch or something but you are a rugby club so it is a contact sport. You may have seen shaun edwards the welsh coach put down the return of the strong welsh defence to doing very high intensity tackling sessions every tuesday during the 6 nations…he said he had to risk injury…however, he was going 100%…bad tackle training, I am talking about teaching your weaker tacklers to do the safest tackles (wrap and rolls etc). Injury rates should be very low in one on one drills, esp with friendly runners.
Motivation, link success on the field to tackle training, rewards every good tackle with praises in game situations and single people out for it….you need to build a culture…see elsewhere in some of my articles about creating a culture in a club.
Thanks